To sometimes wonder how people afford their lifestyles?

Most people that I know appear to have really nice lifestyles. New cars, really nice houses all done out immaculate and on nice roads. Holidays abroad several times a year to nice places too. I've also noticed that most of the parents at school pick their dc up themselves (I'm on maternity leave). There are loads of dads at the school gates too and a lot of mums and dads do the school runs together. A lot of these people are really young too.

One of the dads is a road sweeper so won't be being paid loads and his wife doesn't work, yet they are always doing the school run together but they seem to have the above lifestyle.

Me and dh have a decent household income, hardly rich but 50k, we're not struggling at all but our cars are old, we can only afford cheap holidays, dh works really long hours and is never there for school runs.

I'm not being deliberately envious, logically I know they could have family help or anything I guess people just make it look so easy, I wonder how they do it.

I know at least two or three families who buy everything on credit, on the surface they have new car, amazing holidays, massive tv etc etc but they owe THOUSANDS on cards. I'd personally rather keep debt at a manageable level than constantly have brand new stuff when nothing wrong with the old stuff!

I know a woman who is a childminder has no partner and goes to theme parks most weekends a couple of Haven holidays a year and abroad once a year. My niece has no partner a part time job goes abroad brand new car and she's just bought a bulldog

Safari, my best friend was the manager of the Court Service Dept Department. She worked in a room as large as a high school assembly hall, and every wall was covered with files detailing families that were being brought to COURT over debt....so these were not families or people who had manageable debt!!!!

She said every road in every town had families and people with uncontrollable debt that we're reaching court level.

Could be several reasons. Maybe they are borrowing (loads of people buy cars, TVs, sofas on credit) or at the other end of the scale maybe they have saved up in the past... Eg we currently probably look like we have a better lifestyle than our current income but we upgrade when we can afford it and never before so never pay for credit and we look out for offers (eg needed dining table, kept our eyes out then bought one 2nd hand on gumtree, hardly used but less than half its new price of over 1k.) Or could be inheritance or a family member picking up the bill?

Sometimes you can be very frugal so money really goes far. I won't pay more than I absolutely have to for a lot of stuff so it seems like we spend far more than we do lol Holidays are super cheap (usually not always) for us 6 (classed as 4 adults 2 kids due to teenagers) and I've managed to find these deals in the past Disneyland - 7 days staying in Disney hotel half board early July £650 all inMajor a 7 days may half term - £600 all inFrance summer holidays staying Eurocamp accommodation £240 with euro tunnel Budapest in September this year for 7 days for 8 (taking inlaws) flights & penthouse £700

The trips can be a lot cheaper than it seems, we also have a new car every 8mths as DH gets a lease car from work and he arranged to work pernament earlier so he does school pick ups everyday. We use tesco for all days out usually Alton Towers & Drayton Manor each year at least. Looks can be deceptive